News/Events

Owings Mills Times March 2004
Local firm's scanner makes 3-D image of Liberty Bell
Ray Lewis' head also gets treatment
By Bob Allen

Direct Dimensions president Michael Raphael shows a replica of a statue honoring victims of a 19th-century theatre fire in Richmond, Va. The original was ruined by the elements. Many of us know how to use a scanner for small, flat objects such as the vacation photos, shots of a pet dog, a driver's license or a high school diploma.

But Michael Raphael, co-founder, president and chief engineer of Direct Dimensions, makes his living scanning larger, more complex, three-dimensional objects _ the Lincoln Memorial, the Liberty Bell and Ravens star Ray Lewis's head for starters.

Lewis, Lincoln and the Liberty Bell are merely three of the many unusual 3-D objects that Raphael and his small staff of engineers and technicians have digitally scanned with infinitesimal precision, using $100,000 3-D laser scanners with computer-operated, mobile arms; a $50,000 three-dimensional camera, and specialized software.

"Nobody does what we do anywhere _ at least nobody does it as deeply and broadly in technological terms as we do," said Raphael, who has also scanned nuclear submarines, NASA space suits, auto parts, electronic drills, race cars, helicopter cockpits, plastic bottles, truck cabs, human hands and just about everything else since he started Direct Dimensions a decade or so ago.

The digital scan of the 1752 Liberty Bell that Raphael and his staff completed last month in Philadelphia was commissioned by the Carnille Harvard Bell Foundry in Normandy, France. The foundry will rely on the file while making a replica of the Liberty Bell that will be installed in the Hall of the Regional Council in Caen, Normandy in time for the 60th anniversary commemoration of D-Day and the Allied Forces' invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The resulting half-gigabyte digital image, after being tweaked and fine-tuned with computer-aided design and other programs, will swell to a nearly 50-gigabyte file that captures every angle, contour, engraving and indentation of the original bell, down to features that are one-twentieth the diameter of a human hair.

The finished bell "will be as close to the original design as possible and will also sound just like the original Liberty Bell," which has cracked and been repaired several times over the last two and a half centuries, according to Raphael.

Unlike the original bell, the new replica "won't have the crack in it and will actually ring," he added.

Raphael, a Milford Mill High graduate with an engineering degree from Virginia Tech and an M.B.A. from George Washington University, first became involved with digital scanning about a decade and a half ago. Back then, he was an engineer with Lockheed Martin and spent several years developing some of the 3-D scanning technology he uses today.

About a decade ago, he and another Lockheed Martin engineer, who has since left Direct Dimensions, started their own company to use this technology.

Direct Dimension's original staff of one has since grown to eight, with revenues in the $1 million range, according to Raphael.

"We started out doing simpler, geometric objects," recalled Raphael, whose past and present clients include Black & Decker, General Motors, NASA, Northrop Grumman, the U.S. Army and the Office of Naval Intelligence.

"Then the U.S. Navy asked us to digitally measure a 100-year-old bust of Rear Admiral George W. Melville," a celebrated 19th-century commander who served in the Civil War," Raphael added. "We got special equipment for that, then we scanned a Matisse sculpture for the Baltimore Museum of Art, and those two projects led to many others."

One of Direct Dimension's more off-beat projects was taking a series of a dozen or so 3-D photographs of Ray Lewis' head. The photographs provided an electronic blueprint for creating a life-sized bust of the Ravens' linebacker that was sold at a charity auction. Today, the company's offices are adorned with paperweights and similar geegaws with a likeness of Lewis generated from the same 3-D file.

A couple of years ago, Direct Dimensions was also hired to scan a crumbling marble memorial to 72 people, including a Virginia governor, who died in an 1811 theater fire in downtown Richmond.

The monument, which stood for more than 150 years on the grounds of Richmond's Monumental Church, on the site of the destroyed theater, was badly damaged by weather and pollution, which can cause marble to "sugar" or pull apart over a period of time.

The Historic Richmond Foundation, which is restoring the church, wants a replica to replace the original monument, which has been moved indoors to prevent further deterioration until it can be restored.

Though the replacement monument has yet to be made, a half-sized wooden prototype, made from Direct Dimension's scan, is on display in the company's conference room.

"We were really lucky to be working with (Raphael) and this cutting- edge technology," said Sarah Coleen, the project director at Historic Richmond in charge of the Monumental Church restoration.

"If we didn't have this amazing technology, we would probably have lost a very important piece of our history," Coleen added. "It also helped us learn a lot about the monument and its structure and how it was made. I think (digital scanning) is going to became standard practice for people doing restoration projects like we're doing."

Direct Dimensions has also scanned parts of the Lincoln Memorial in Washingtion and may soon scan the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, which is also slated for restoration.

When Raphael and his staff aren't digitizing historic monuments, they're are usually involved in more utilitarian assignments, such as scanning nuclear submarines to study their surface dynamics or digitizing an electric drill or truck cab for a reverse engineering project.

Raphael says that it's all very exciting. Yet he says he feels as if his engineer's curiosity and his business owner's pragmatism sometimes seem to be on a collision course.

"As a company we are in a lot of different worlds _ product development, prototyping, historic preservation, industrial design, aerospace," he said, with a trace of consternation.

"We do neat stuff every day, and we get really excited by something like the Liberty Bell project and get sidetracked and don't answer the phone for a while," he added with a shrug.

"But sometimes it's almost like we can't see the forest for the trees, there are so many different ways we can go."n the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, which is also slated for restoration.

When Raphael and his staff aren't digitizing historic monuments, they're are usually involved in more utilitarian assignments, such as scanning nuclear submarines to study their surface dynamics or digitizing an electric drill or truck cab for a reverse engineering project.

Raphael says that it's all very exciting. Yet he says he feels as if his engineer's curiosity and his business owner's pragmatism sometimes seem to be on a collision course.

"As a company we are in a lot of different worlds _ product development, prototyping, historic preservation, industrial design, aerospace," he said, with a trace of consternation.

"We do neat stuff every day, and we get really excited by something like the Liberty Bell project and get sidetracked and don't answer the phone for a while," he added with a shrug.

"But sometimes it's almost like we can't see the forest for the trees, there are so many different ways we can go."